Strength of the Aztecs

“He’s intense,” said defensive lineman Ernie Lawson. “He demands greatness from us. He’s not asking for 6-6 or just to be bowl eligible. He demands 12-0. 13-0.”

Ask most players and they’ll tell you the drill they hate most is plate-pushes. Usually coming at the end of a lift session, players have to push 45-pound plates about 100 yards. Sometimes, Wellman will have the players race to up the intensity level.

“I don’t think the cupboards were bare when we got here. We had some athletes,” he said. “But from a weight-room standpoint, we showed them a different way to do things.”

If you watch Wellman on the sidelines during games, he lives and dies with every play. He’ll yell and scream like any other coach. The players might not always like him, but most appreciate what he’s trying to do.

“Watching these guys be successful is my payoff,” Wellman said. If you are in coaching for any other reason, then you are in it for the wrong reasons. If someone from the community came and saw our kids work, they wouldn’t believe what they see. How they work. How they lead. They deserve to be successful.”

His workouts are brutal. He pushes the players to their breaking point — but understands there is a fine line between working a player hard and going over the edge.

“Anyone can run a team into the ground,” he said. “The art of strength and conditioning is knowing your team and knowing your players. They have to trust me and I have to trust them … that’s the most logical way to approach it.”

Now that he’s had a year with the Aztecs, Wellman is able to keep more extensive notes. He knows exactly what the team did on June 14, 2009. So when that day rolled around, he could review the workout and see how they responded. That’s how he gauges each day’s workout.

“He’s really like a doctor with his understanding of the human body,” Hoke said. “He’s tunnel-visioned in what he does and I have complete trust in him.”